The Grace of the Ghost of Christmas Past

This is my reponse to rozenkraai's second comment in "The Grace of Hopelessness."

I agree, and thank you for the encouragement.

Jeremiah 29:11 is the verse you're talking about; one of the few I've memorized.

Let me add v. 12-14 onto it for you, cortesy of biblegateway.com:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."

I've always been entranced by the Ghost of Christmas Past from Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." He's everything I want to be: Laughing, kind, hairy, unapologetic, immune to manipulation, huge of heart and full of grace, shining, festive, attended by the best kind of pomp and utterly grace-full.

Rather like a mini-Jesus, no? Isn't this picture of what Jesus talked about in John 10:10 ("...I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.") Isn't this a collection of attributes we hope to see in God?

At the floor of my soul I trust God to be God and I trust Him to love me even when His love seems a complete mystery to me. I trust in His love, trust it is a perfect, eternal love. I trust this love, which so often to me seems unknowable, is, in fact, knowable. That it's comfortable, that it knows me better than I know myself and everything in my life is directed by His hand, all this angst on this blog is so much "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." ('Macbeth', Act V, sc. V).

One hearty belly laugh, like from the Ghost of Christmas Past, would blow it all away and dawn would arrive.